In brief
We are Paul Betteridge and Aimee Tippins, a middle-aged couple who run ultra marathons together!
Paul is a recovering alcoholic, sober since 27 August 2023 and Aimee is currently perimenopausal - we both find ultrarunning is a great outlet for us to help us get through challenging times together.
We did our first ultra marathon in February 2023 (Run Walk Crawl’s Brecon to Cardiff) which was a 44 miler. Our biggest distance completed so far was 200 miles on the Winter Downs 200 (Dec'25).
It is usually Paul who dreams up mad challenges or finds crazy races to sign up for and Aimee takes a lot of persuading...
A common theme is Paul will start the event with ambitious goals and feeling really confident, but then things don’t go to plan for him, whilst Aimee goes into the event convinced she is going to fail and she often does really well!
Aimee
Aimee dabbled a bit in running in her thirties, but nothing serious - just the occasional Race for Life to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Then in December 2014 she did a 5K Santa Dash run then a 12K race in January 2015. She completed that race but injured her left knee in the process. This resulted in surgery in October 2015 and she assumed she would never run again.
Near the end of 2019, Aimee did a few experimental Parkruns to see how her knee felt when running, but the novelty wore off in the New Year! It was lockdown in 2020 which led to Aimee taking up running properly. Furloughed, stuck at home, she found herself climbing the walls, so she started going out for little runs. Her knee held up okay and so she kept it up. But at that point she had no idea that she would end up running ultra marathons – she didn’t even know they existed!
Paul
Paul had never run before; his background was in calisthenics and mountain biking. He started joining Aimee on some of her 2020 lockdown runs and for the next year or so he dipped in and out of it. This was mainly because he found it hard, and he also initially only purchased running gear based on fashion not functionality and had lots of issues with his footwear! Paul also had alcohol issues around this time, which caused his enthusiasm for fitness to ebb and wane somewhat, often due to raging hangovers.
In August 2023 Paul decided to stop drinking alcohol completely and that led to him starting to take his running much more seriously. Since then he keeps finding more and more scary/challenging events for us to sign up for!
From first Half Marathon in 2021 to first Ultra Marathon in 2023
Aimee ran her first official race in July 2021 which was Compton Verney Half Marathon (she was gifted the place at the last minute which is why Paul didn’t run it with her). She hadn’t done any proper training for it and it was a blazing hot day so she didn’t quite hit her target of finishing in under 2 hours, but was chuffed to get close with her time of 2:00:47!
Our first official race together was the Alcester 10K on 10 October 2021. We started together but despite doing very little training, Paul got ahead and finished in 50:00, beating Aimee’s 51:38.
Then on 17 Oct 2021 we started the Sutton Park Half Marathon together. It was a horrible day weather-wise, very wet and windy. The race did not go well for Aimee, she started feeling unwell and also struggled mentally with the race being 4 laps of the park, so she pulled out after 2 laps. As she had done just over 10k when she crossed the finish line, the organisers very kindly allowed her to drop down to the 10K distance on the results, so she still got a medal! Paul pushed on and completed the half marathon – this (so far) was the last time Paul has beaten Aimee!
The only races we did in 2022 were the Alcester 10K spring and autumn races (May and October) – at both of these races we started together but Aimee finished ahead of Paul! During this time, Paul started watching YouTube videos about ultramarathons and becoming more and more fascinated with the concept. Numerous times he told Aimee he would some day run 100 miles, but he still at this point was not taking his running very seriously, and Aimee never believed it would happen! Nevertheless he was able to persuade Aimee to sign up to do our first ultra marathon together in February 2023 (Brecon to Cardiff, 44 miles). That race was a massive eye opener for both of us and we learnt valuable lessons about the importance of fuelling and correct footwear – but we finished, together!
That was the start of our ultra running journey and we haven't looked back!